I’m very familiar with impatience, because it has been a lifelong companion of mine.

Some ways I’ve noticed I get impatient:

  • I want to make quick progress on efforts such as projects, learning, and habits, and I get impatient when it takes longer than I’d hoped—wanting results immediately.
  • I get frustrated when I’m teaching something to someone and they don’t get it right away—a fear that I’m not doing a good job of teaching.
  • I get frustrated when other people aren’t moving as quickly as I want to move on a project—more of wanting results immediately.

Do any of these sound familiar?

How to Become More Patient

Be warned that developing patience takes a bit of patience! I know that’s ironic, but I want to set up the expectation that it’s not an immediate switch for most of us. Developing patience takes practice.

Why We’re Impatient

Before we can see how to shift ourselves to a more patient mindset, we have to understand why we’re impatient.

Often we’re impatient because we want what we want, and we want it now. We want results as soon as possible. We want quick progress. We want to be through the part where we’re learning, to the point where we’re good at it.

In other words, we don’t like to be in the messy growth phase. It’s like not wanting to go through the construction phase and instead  to go straight to the finished home. Not wanting to be a beginner, but to be an instant expert.

If we’re unwilling to go through the growth phase and experience all of the discomfort it brings, then we’re unable to experience growth.

Beyond impatience to get to the finish line, we also want other people to act the way we want them to act—to move quickly, do things the way we like, learn quickly—so we can get things done. Just like when we don’t have grace for ourselves to go through the growth process, we also don’t have grace for other people who are growing. We expect them to already do things perfectly.

A Shift in Mindset

By understanding why we’re impatient, how do we then develop more patience? The answer lies in developing grace for ourselves and others who are going through a growth process. Hint: That’s all of us.

We need to develop a tolerance for the discomfort of being in the growth process. Being a beginner and messing up simply isn’t comfortable. We want to get out of that discomfort—and that’s a big reason why we’re impatient.

How can we learn to tolerate this discomfort?

We can learn to see the beauty in growth and learning:

  • Can we find beauty in making mistakes? This is where learning takes place.
  • Can we find beauty in being a beginner? This is the place where so much is possible.
  • Can we find beauty in messiness? This is where creativity happens.
  • Can we find beauty in not moving as quickly as we want? In slowness, we can deepen our curiosity.

How to Practice

Commit to developing a new mindset of seeing the beauty in growth, learning, slowness, and messiness.

Try to notice whenever you’re feeling impatient, when you want to move quickly, when you want results now, when you want people to learn or move as quickly as you want them to.

When you notice the impatience, pause and breathe. See this as an opportunity to find beauty in the messiness.

Then slow down for a moment, and reflect on what beauty you can find in the growth, learning, messiness, mistakes, being a beginner, and going slowly.

Find grace for the other person’s growth process as well—what beauty can you find in theirs?